Vice President JD Vance has broken his silence after two days of brutal trolling on social media about being among the last few visitors that Pope Francis met hours before his death. While people have started congratulating him, many people called him anti-Christian and blamed him for the Pope’s death. As Vance was in India with his family, he opened up about the coincidence and said he thought about it a lot in the past two days.
Vance said it was pretty crazy but a great blessing for him that he could meet the Pope in his final hours. “I’ve thought a lot about that. I mean, it’s pretty crazy, actually,” Vance said. “And, obviously, when I saw him, I didn’t know that he had less than 24 hours still on this earth. I think it was a great blessing.”
Vance was one of the last officials to meet with Francis. The vice president, who is Catholic, held formal talks with the Vatican’s secretary of state over the weekend before an informal face-to-face with Francis the following day. Francis’ death on April 21 came less than 24 hours after he met with Vance.
“I was lucky that I got to shake his hand and tell him that I pray for him every day, because I did,” Vance said. He said he will always remember Pope Francis as a great pastor, his true expressions of Christian love.
Will JD Vance attend Pope’s funeral?
JD Vance said he is planning neither to attend nor to skip the funeral; he said it has not been given much thought about who is going to attend the funeral from the part of the US government.
On Pope’s objection to President Donald Trump’s policies, including that of deportation, JD Vance said a lot of people, especially the legacy media of America, made the Holy Father, even his life and death about US politics. “He was, obviously, a much broader figure than the US. Yes, I am aware of the disagreements he had over some of the policies of our administration; he also had a lot of agreements with some other policies. I am not gonna soil the man’s legacy by talking about politics,” JD said.